23 BEN
BEN
“It’s unfair how gorgeous you two are together, unfair!
” Steven gushes at us a couple hours later.
We’ve greeted Tyrone, the Aunts, Harper, the mayor, I mean assistant mayor, all of whom, I noticed, thanked Janie for something.
She helped Harper with her bookkeeping. She fed Tyrone’s cat for two days.
She drove the Aunts to and from her Gran’s facility twice.
She pretended to be bothered by all of it.
Now we’re cornered by Steven and his husband, Miles. They're a good-looking couple. Steven is the All-American Boy to a T, and Miles is dark and edgy and, based on the Spanish cursing I overheard during the scarecrow contest, Latino.
“You clean up alright yourself,” Janie replies.
“No. This is not about me, you’re having a moment. Spin!” Steven grabs Janie by the waist and turns her.
“Easy mate,” I say, noticing him notice all of Janelle. “With all due respect, are you sure you’re gay?”
“Oh, I’ve only ever had eyes for men, since her. She didn’t tell you?”
“Steven, he doesn’t—”
“Tell me what?” I frown at him, then her.
“Here it comes,” Janie mutters into her drink.
“Janiegirl was my one and only girlfriend before I saw the light. Or as the little old ladies around town said at the time, she turned me gay!” Steven laughs. “Idiots. So, if I were ever to switch back to playing for the other team, it’d be for this girl right here.”
“Honey,” Miles says right when Janie mutters Steven’s name again.
“You dated?”
“In high school. I was her first love.”
“You were not—”
He sets his drink down as if ready to come to blows over this point. “Don’t you try to tell me that Walker was your first love. It was me and we both know it.”
“Walker?” I ask involuntarily.
“College boyfriend. Second fiddle to me, the high school boyfriend. Almost as charming and sophisticated as yours truly but a musician. Ugh, the worst.”
“I’m a musician.” Miles says calmly.
“You’re a classical pianist, sweetheart. Not the same.”
Janie puts a hand to her head, “Literally the—”
“And then Theo, we all knew he was too charming but it took you a while to—”
“Steven!” Both Miles and Janie say together.
“What? You ended up with a hot, British billionaire, who is what, six four? Literally on magazine covers! People’s most charming man alive! You win, girl, you win.”
Janie is blushing badly and taking another generous sip, okay, gulp of her wine.
“Actually, I’d say I’m the real winner. You’re a daft lot, all three of you.” I slide my hand around her waist.
“See? Charming,” Steven sighs. Janie pulls out of my grip. Miles clears his throat and walks away.
“Uh oh,” Steven follows after him. “Babe, I just got caught up! You know how I get with the banter!”
“He’s a character, isn’t he?” I turn to Janie as he goes.
“That’s what I get for letting him corner us. You get my entire pathetic dating history and now poor Miles is going to have a complex about his profession and probably his height and his New York accent.”
“What? No. Miles seems a stable chap, confident. He’s fine.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She replies into her glass.
“Are you? Fine?”
She nods, “Just tired. Two nights in a row, ya know.”
“Come then, one dance for that photographer hiding in the trees over there, then we’ll go home.” I extend my hand to her but she hesitates. Damn. Just when I thought we were past this. Thought we were having fun. Reluctantly, she agrees.
I lead her to the checkerboard floor laid into the grass of the town square.
We ease into a comfortable slow dance to some country song I don’t recognize.
Her mind is racing though, I can tell. She worries her lip and won’t look up at me.
So I pull her much, much closer. As a result her cleavage bulges right in my line of sight. And what a sexy sight it—
“My face is up here, Boss.”
Oh, right.
“Sorry. Actually no, I’m your husband, let me get my fill.” I make a point to stare.
She scoffs, “You’re unreal.”
“Uh huh, and you’re so bothered by what Steven shared becaaause?”
“Wow, just going there, huh.”
“Yes.”
“Can’t let me have this one? Stew in silence?”
I smirk, “I’ll permit you silence in exchange for this,” I move my hand on her back south, dangerously close to just grabbing a handful of what I want.
“Done, grope away,” she says, her voice a bit scratchy. But she still doesn’t want to lock eyes with me.
“No…well? No.” I shake my head and move my hand back. Finally she locks her gaze on mine. “It physically pains me, but I’ll refrain. No deal.” She tries to glower but I don’t budge. I want her to let me in. I lean down a bit closer to ask, “Honestly, what is it, love?”
“I don’t know, just, an imbalance, I guess?”
“Imbalance.”
“Yes, now you know about my embarrassing past but what about you? We swiped through fifty-six women and yet you haven’t told me a single detail about one girlfriend.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, ah. You said you got bored every time, and I know you never got close to a proposal but are you telling me you never, ever got semi-serious? Never had a real relationship?”
“I did. I had a girlfriend for a couple months at University. Charlotte.” I lift a shoulder. “Not serious, of course, we were just kids.”
“And what about…” I wait, unsure what she’ll ask next.
“Darling, if you think we’ve reached the point where I can finish your sentences, we’ve a ways to go.”
“The ones who fell in love with you, Benedict! What about them, how long did you charm them?” She spits the last bit. Something heavy clicks in my brain, and in my gut.
“You think I led them on?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No, never.” She scoffs and I double down, “Not on purpose. No. And honestly there’ve only been two who really thought—”
“Thought you loved them?” She says, sounding angry.
I’m tempted to get angry too, that she clearly doesn’t think much of me. Is clearly lumping me in with a group of tossers, led by that wanker Theo, I assume.
“Thought we were more serious than we were. You can ask them, I’m not some heartless jerk, Janelle, come on. One was Rebecca. We dated a few months but it was more partying our way through Europe than it was dating each other.”
“Sorry. I guess I might be projecting a little.”
“You think?” I breathe deeply, trying to calm myself. Why am I so bothered by this? She’s made it clear I’m too much for her. Too much like Theo and I guess all the other past boyfriends. This is just par for the course she’s set.
“It’s none of my business anyway.” She says, shrugging.
“The other,” I say, hoping she’s secretly as interested in my past as I am in hers, “Was Penny. Again, it was just a couple months. It was around the holidays, actually, like this. Lots of parties and festivities and we went to them all together, she took that as serious. I took it as,” I stop myself.
“What?” Janie narrows her eyes at me.
I wince, “convenient.” I rush to add, “But I never took her to meet Mum or proclaimed my feelings or anything. I’ve never led anyone on, I promise you.”
“Sorry,” she whispers again.
“He did though? Theo?”
She looks at the sky, then back at me. “Isn’t it time for you to make a joke about my legs or something?”
“I would never joke about your legs. They’re dear to me.” She starts to smile. “Will you tell me at some point, what he did?”
She takes a deep breath in. “Steven will just blab it if I don’t.
Theo and I started young and were on-again-off-again for years.
He was a mess. He needed me.” Something must flicker across my face, so she nods.
“Yeah, I have a thing about that. Being needed. Feels a lot like being wanted, which I wasn’t by my mother, blah blah blah, I’m working on it, ok?
But his art career stabilized, we moved in together, he proposed.
I thought we were solid. But…but he broke up with me three months before our wedding, at our engagement party.
” I curse under my breath. “Yeah, all our friends were there. Loved that for me. Then months later, he said he wanted to try again. Then broke it off again.” I inhale slowly, deeply, trying to keep from responding with a slew of words for this Theo that I don’t want to be overheard by the Aunts watching us nearby. “And again.”
“What?”
“Yup. Third time’s a charm.”
“Ugh, I...I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine now. I’m over it.” She lies, her eyes turning glassy.
“Are you now?” I snipe, angry, but not at her. I hate this, all of it. I hate that he did that to her, multiple damn times and I hate that this town uses her life for their busybody entertainment and I especially hate that she’s still so affected by all of it. By him.
“I am.” She straightens her spine and her fire is back in her eyes, beautiful as ever. “It’s just the kind of thing that sticks with you. Isn’t that the girl that got dumped at her own engagement party?” She says the last part in a hushed tone.
The song ends at the worst possible time because she pulls away, in a million ways.
I have to lean down to her ear to say, “He’s a bloody fool.”
She gives a sad smile and begins walking toward the car, “You have to say that now as my husband. ”
“As your husband I’d sure as hell like to say a lot more than that. I’d like to have my P.I. find his home. I’d like Nigel’s scary Irish biker friends to visit him in the dead of night with a crowbar.” Her eyes widen.
“Ben!”
“Wait, can’t leave now. We must dance to this.” I say as Monster Mash blares all around us.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I pull her to me and then spin her out. I can feel the heaviness leave her the more she moves. I toss her around the dance floor to many cheers, pleased she follows my lead. I take the opportunity to dip her low, enjoying how she’s limp, trusting me completely. I move one of my hands.
“Your hand’s on my ass.”
“Finally.” I squeeze and then lift her back up.
I ignore the urge to hold her closer, squeeze her again. To dip her and kiss the shit out of her. She’s happy, free, flying. The town is giddy around us. All is well, light, fun.
And I want to keep it that way.
That’s all this is.
Yes, I have the start of a crush forming. Fine.
I've had crushes before, they never last. I'll get bored eventually. I'll feel that familiar restlessness. I'm temporarily lightening the load of a friend.
Yes, I have the urge to have every variety of hot, filthy sex with said friend. But that’s only natural, look at her. And I’m a thirty-three-year-old man, not a horny, lovesick teenager.
I can ignore both…
Okay, I can ignore one.
The other I’ll continue to deal with in the shower in the mornings…
And again in bed at night, usually, making a mess of my stomach like a damn adolescent.
I watch Janie climb into the passenger side of the car, that juicy peach backside shifting under the fabric that’s quickly becoming my favorite.
Bloody hell. I round the car and send a quick text to Mitch:
Find kickboxing club in NYC. ASAP.